Wizards of the Coast has notified us that we may no longer sell or distribute their PDF products. Accordingly, after April 6 at 11:59 PM Pacific time, Wizards of the Coast PDFs will no longer be available for purchase on paizo.com; after noon on April 7, you will no longer be able to download Wizards of the Coast PDFs that you have already purchased, so please make sure you have downloaded all purchased PDFs by that time.

We thank you for your patronage of paizo.com. Please check out our other downloads at paizo.com/store/downloads.

Because of....

Hey all. I wanted to step in and shine a mote of light on the subject. First off, this cesation of PDF sales has absolutely nothing to do with the Internet Sales Policy. I know it's the 6th of April and I can definitely see how the two would appear linked, but the truth is, this is a completely seperate matter.

Unfortunately, due to recent findings of illegal copying and online distribution (piracy) of our products, Wizards of the Coast has decided to cease the sales of online PDFs. We are exploring other options for digitial distribution of our content and as soon as we have any more information I'll get it to you.

And then....

"Wizards of the Coast LLC today filed three lawsuits in US
District Court for the Western District of Washington against eight individuals, including named defendants located in the United States, Poland and the Philippines, for copyright infringement of its recently-released Dungeons & Dragons® Player¹s Handbook® 2. The lawsuits allege that the defendants illegally distributed the Player¹s Handbook 2 via free file-sharing websites and that these illicit uploads resulted in a substantial number of lost sales and lost revenue to Wizards of the Coast.

"Violations of our copyrights and piracy of our products hurt not only Wizards of the Coast¹s financial health but also the health of whole gaming community including retailers and players,² said Greg Leeds, President of Wizards of the Coast. ³We have brought these suits to stop the illegal activities of these defendants, and to deter future unauthorized and unlawful file-sharing."

The complaint alleges, among other things, that one or more of the defendants purchased digital copies of Player¹s Handbook 2 and then illegally posted the copies onto popular file-sharing sites for free access and download by the general public."

Mike B.

I was going to post this, but you did a far better job than I ever could have

If it really is about the file-sharing lawsuit, Wizards have just shot themselves in the foot. Sales of 4th edition products have reportedly been underwhelming, and they're looking to make scapegoats out of the pirates. From the message board chatter I've seen, people aren't taking too kindly to this move. Old products are quite popular among younger players (I for one became a fan of Greyhawk years after they ceased producing new material), and many are threatening to forgo buying 4e books altogether as a direct result of this action.

It's a step backward for WotC too. As the recording and movie industries discovered, people aren't going to not download their stuff just because it's illegal to do so. When downloading music was completely the realm of Napster and the like, people did it anyway. But when finally given the option to buy it, people began to do so in droves. Wizards has just done the same, in reverse.

Personally, I prefer hardcopies. I find them much easier to read and fun to track down and collect. And I have a feeling others are going to be doing the same pretty soon now. My question is, how will this move affect the market?

Hunter wrote:I don't know if those places can survive solely on 3rd party products. I'm going to guess that they'll jump through whatever hoops they have to in order to remain viable. I don't think Wizards of the Coast cares if they fail though

I have no idea about Paizo's PDF business, but I expect DriveThruRPG/RPGNow to survive -- even though this will definitely hurt them -- if only because they're the official source for PDFs for a number of publishers.

Aggressive defense of trademarks & copyrights is SOP when sale of the property is immanent.

Not conclusive but praps indicative.

F

ExTSR wrote:Aggressive defense of trademarks & copyrights is SOP when sale of the property is immanent.

Not conclusive but praps indicative.

F

That would certainly be great news

I hope they don't start drinking their own Kool-Aid about stopping piracy with this.  IMHO the only way to stop piracy is to provide a superior product than what's available from some kid with a scanner sitting in a basement.

The upside is that the only legal way to obtain OOP product is from those willing to sell it.  Not sure what kind of upswing this will make for auctions in the short term but could be extremely beneficial in the long term (unless WotC provides the service in house    ).

Preparing to spin off parts of the corporation has a ring of truth to it but I wont hold my breath for a potential buyer in this enviornment.  Someone needs to win the super lotto and make an offer.  I wonder what it would take for Hasbro to release the liscense?

SoulCatcher78 wrote:I hope they don't start drinking their own Kool-Aid about stopping piracy with this.  IMHO the only way to stop piracy is to provide a superior product than what's available from some kid with a scanner sitting in a basement.

The upside is that the only legal way to obtain OOP product is from those willing to sell it.  Not sure what kind of upswing this will make for auctions in the short term but could be extremely beneficial in the long term (unless WotC provides the service in house    ).

Preparing to spin off parts of the corporation has a ring of truth to it but I wont hold my breath for a potential buyer in this enviornment.  Someone needs to win the super lotto and make an offer.  I wonder what it would take for Hasbro to release the liscense?

My feeling is that this is just WOTCs attempt to push their 4e sales (and generally protect their IP). It seems doubtful that it can help sales at this late date, but maybe they are getting ready for 4.5 or 5th edition.

JasonZavoda wrote:My feeling is that this is just WOTCs attempt to push their 4e sales (and generally protect their IP). It seems doubtful that it can help sales at this late date, but maybe they are getting ready for 4.5 or 5th edition.

Oh, I really hope they come out with a 4.5e soon, so the RPG world can get all up in arms, boycott WOTC material and watch D&D go down in flames...so they can sell the license to someone who will do it right.

.pdf files are great for maps (print a copy and draw arrows and such all over it)  and back ups for the OOP stuff but as more folks start keeping a computer at the gaming table, they become handy for their cut-and-paste capability.  Given some of the stat blocks for newer products, reproducing them by hand is just not something that I would look forward to.